


When All the Beauty in the World Just Isn't Enough

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Established Relationship, Heroin, M/M, Needles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Grantaire Shipping Week. Jehan wants to know what it feels like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When All the Beauty in the World Just Isn't Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from an Antony John quote: "He was depressed. He was addicted to heroin. And I think there comes a time when all the beauty in the world just isn't enough."
> 
> Please read the tags for warnings.
> 
> Usual disclaimer: if you recognize it, it's not mine.

They kissed slowly, lazily, exchanging smoke from mouth to mouth as they did, hands trailing down their bodies. Jehan’s eyes were glassy, his grin too wide, and he rolled the joint between his fingers before drawing another puff into his mouth and passing the joint back to Grantaire. Grantaire laughed as he took it, inhaling deeply before exhaling in a perfect ring. “Beautiful,” he pronounced, before smiling at Jehan with a sweet, simple smile, and adding, “Just as beautiful as you.”

Jehan just laughed, leaning in to kiss Grantaire, plucking the joint from his fingers as he did. “You’re a dreadful liar,” he whispered, though his answering grin told Grantaire that he appreciated the lie all the same.

“I’m not lying!” Grantaire protested, leaning back against the couch, his shirt riding up to show his hipbone jutting under his skin. “There are many things that I will lie about, but how beautiful you are is not one of them.” He reached out to drape his arm across Jehan’s thin shoulders, running his hand down Jehan’s arm. “Just as I would never lie about how much I love you.”

“I know that,” Jehan said softly, turning to burrow into Grantaire’s side. “Which is why I’ve never asked you to tell me you love me most of all. Because I know better.”

Grantaire froze against him. “If this is about Enjolras—” he started, the words of their familiar argument springing to mind, but Jehan shook his head almost vehemently.

“It’s not about Enjolras.” Tentatively, as if waiting for Grantaire to tell him no, to tell him to stop, Jehan pushed Grantaire’s sleeve up his arm, running his fingers up the newly revealed skin to dance lightly over the track marks there, some faded, some very fresh. “It’s about this.”

Now Grantaire stared at him, something unfathomable in his eyes. “What about it?” he asked, almost coldly. “Do you want me to stop? Is that it? Do you want me to quit? To get clean?”

Jehan shook his head again. “No. Never. I just…” He trailed off, fingers still tracing the scars that marred Grantaire’s pale skin, his veins showing all too clearly, making what he did all too easy for him. “I want to try it for myself.”

In an instant, Grantaire had moved from next to him to kneel in front of him, hands on Jehan’s knees. “You don’t mean that,” he said, something close to panic in his voice. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do mean that.” Jehan’s voice was quiet but eager. “You know that it’s…that it’s always fascinated me. I haven’t tried it because, well, because it’s not something I want to do on my own. But you’re here with me, and I know you’ll help me.” He paused to take a deep breath before saying, “I want you to inject me. I want this, and I trust you. Because I love you.”

Grantaire lifted Jehan’s hand, extended his arm toward him, pushed the sleeve of his oversized sweater up to reveal the smooth skin there, unmarked and unbroken, and unbidden, he pressed a kiss to the tangle of veins at the base of Jehan’s wrist. “I don’t want this for you,” he said softly, holding Jehan’s wrist lightly in his hand. “I never wanted this for you. You’re so much better than this.”

Jehan’s hand twitched as if he meant to jerk it away from Grantaire’s grip, but he only pulled it back far enough to link his fingers with Grantaire’s. “I’m really not,” he said honestly, smiling slightly. “Or if I am, then you are too. Your choice either way.” When Grantaire didn’t say anything, Jehan traced his fingertips up Grantaire’s arm to rest lightly on his track marks.

“Please, Grantaire,” Jehan breathed, voice so faint that Grantaire almost couldn’t hear the quiet plea. “I want to know what it’s like. I want to know how it feels. I want to do this. Please.”

Grantaire stared at him for a long moment, looking for something within Jehan’s eyes, any sign that reinforced just how terrible of an idea this was. He found none, and dropped his head and heaved a sigh. “Ok,” he whispered, well aware that he was dragging Jehan to hell with him.

But Jehan’s eyes lit up at Grantaire acquiescence and he leaned in to kiss Grantaire, pressing against him, running his fingers through Grantaire’s hair. Grantaire kissed him back almost desperately, as if he might convince him through just a kiss that it wasn’t worth it, that Jehan shouldn’t do this, that this was more monumental than any mistake that Jehan had made, the least of which had been falling in love with Grantaire in the first place.

The problem was that Jehan was in love with Grantaire, would do anything for Grantaire, even throw his own life away in order to follow him down the rabbit’s hole to the type of hell that Grantaire had been living in for far longer than he cared to remember.

And so when Grantaire pulled away from Jehan, it was with a resigned look on his face, and he said softly, “I’ll be right back.”

He was gone for no more than a moment, just long enough to grab his kit, the baggie of powder, the spoon, and everything else. Jehan watched, almost enraptured, as Grantaire carefully measured some powder into the spoon, adding water, stirring it with the tip of the needle. Then he added part of the cotton ball and carefully, so carefully, drew the liquid into the syringe.

Then he knelt in front of Jehan, his own expression blank as he reached out for Jehan’s arm, pulling it close to him, almost cradling his hand in his lap. He had taken his belt off and was so gentle in looping it around Jehan’s bicep, almost caressing his skin as he pulled it tight.

His fingers skimmed across Jehan’s veins, standing out now against his pale skin, and Jehan shivered slightly, smiling apologetically when Grantaire glanced up at him. “Sorry,” he whispered, flexing involuntarily against the pressure. “Continue.”

Grantaire’s gaze lingered on his for a moment longer, then he bowed his head again, prodding more purposefully, finding the vein that he was looking for. He held his finger against it for a long moment as if debating with himself, as if trying to talk himself out of it.

But then the moment was gone, and with only a brief moment’s hesitation more, he slid the needle into Jehan’s vein and pushed the plunger down.

Jehan’s mouth opened in an “O”, and he was lost. Lost in euphoria, lost in a feeling better than any he had experienced, better than the first time Grantaire had held him close and kissed him, better than the first time Grantaire had held him against the mattress and fucked him.

Nothing in the world could ever compare to the feeling of heroin in his veins, and no matter how much of a poet Jehan was, there were no words that existed to describe it.

The needle was gone from his arm, the belt removed, but Jehan didn’t notice any of it, lost in his own world and in the sensations from the smack. Grantaire looped the belt around his own arm and pulled it tight with his teeth before injecting himself almost without looking, closing his eyes as he did.

Jehan was gone, drifting so far away that he barely noticed as Grantaire pulled him onto the bed, as Grantaire wrapped his arm around Jehan’s waist and held him upright, his back pressed against Grantaire’s chest.

He was gone. He was lost.

Grantaire had been lost to this white powder for years, and now the man he loved, the man who he had hoped might be enough to pull him out of it, strong enough to help him, just  _enough_  to help him, lay next to him, as lost as he was.

And heaven help him — heaven help  _Jehan_  — but he loved him, and he would do anything for him.

Anything but give up heroin.

So Grantaire pulled Jehan just a little bit closer, and rested his head against Jehan’s back, and closed his eyes to drift off to the perfect dreams that heroin brought to him, the man he loved in his arms, and repercussions far too gone for him to be able to deal with then (or ever).


End file.
